Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy, founded on 15 May 1943. The PCI originated with the Communist Party of Italy, which had been founded in 1921, and the party was outlawed by Benito Mussolini's fascist government. The party played a part in World War II as a part of the Italian resistance movement, and it became the second-largest party in Italy after the war, having 2,300,000 members in 1947 and winnng 34.4% of the vote in 1976. By the 1970s or 1980s, the party's views had evolved from communism to democratic socialism, and it joined the Democratic Party of the Left in 1991.